The plant of the month for September is the Japanese anemone, your go-to plant for late summer colour.that lasts well into autumn and beyond. Its season of interest extends well beyond its beautifully simple, saucer-shaped flowers, too: the petals unfurl from silky buds which are just as pretty, and once the flowers have faded they leave a quirky little golden-green bobble dancing on wiry stems above the foliage lasting well into the colder months of the year. Even in winter their handsome, semi-evergreen foliage provides some welcome greenery to fill bare borders.
Colours range from the pure classic white of ‘Honorine Jobert’ with its boss of butter-yellow stamens around a green eye, to the semi-double silvery pink flowers of ‘Koningin Charlotte’ and pretty two-tone ‘Hadspen Abundance’ with its outer petals in red-pink and inner petals in a contrasting paler shade.
There are few more easy-going plants: they’re happy in sun or part shade and need no maintenance beyond a trim to remove spent flower stalks and tidy up any dead leaves in March. Clumps spread slowly into a riot of flower you’ll look forward to all year: combine with other late summer beauties like hydrangeas, asters, hardy geraniums and rich red and purple fuchsias like ‘Mrs Popple’.
